Given

How to spell given

5 letters · 2 syllables

How to pronounce given

Say the part in capitals loudest.

What does given mean?

1. verbThe past participle of 'give': having handed over, provided, or granted something.
2. adjectiveSpecified or particular; fixed for the purpose at hand.
3. prepositionTaking into account; considering a stated fact or condition.

Given in a sentence

• verb

  She had given the report to her manager before lunch.

• adjective

  At any given moment, dozens of trains are crossing the city.

• preposition

  Given the heavy traffic, we decided to leave an hour early.

• verb

  The committee had given its full approval to the budget.

• adjective

  You must finish the assessment within the given time limit.

• preposition

  Given his long experience, the promotion surprised nobody.

Where does given come from?

Language of origin: Germanic

This is the past participle of the verb 'give', whose roots reach back through Old English 'giefan', meaning 'to hand over' or 'to bestow', into the common Germanic stock; the closely related Old Norse 'gefa' reinforced the word during the Viking settlements. The modern spelling with a hard initial 'g' actually owes more to that Old Norse influence than to the softer Old English form, which is why we say 'give' rather than the 'yive' the Old English pronunciation would have suggested. The participle form 'given' had settled by the Middle English period, and from there it broadened into an adjective meaning 'specified' or 'particular', as in a given quantity. By the seventeenth century it had also taken on the connector use, 'given that', meaning 'taking into account'. The same Germanic root sits inside everyday relatives such as 'gift' and 'forgive', so the family resemblance in spelling is no accident.

How the word is built

• giv- (from give: to hand over)
• -en (past-participle/adjective suffix)